October 13, 2012 2:00pm EDTOctober 13, 2012 1:54pm EDTA day before their national team plays a World Cup qualifying match in Canada, five Cuban soccer players flee. FIFA confirms the five defected.

Staff report

Published on Oct. 13, 2012

Oct. 13, 2012

The Cuban national soccer team was depleted for Friday's World Cup qualifying match against Canada after five players defected just hours before the match at BMO Field in Toronto.

The team fielded 11 players for the game after traveling to Toronto with 16. After the match, Cuban coach Alexander Gonzalez was reluctant to talk about the missing players other than to say through an interpreter that some had left the team.

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Whereabouts of the players was unknown, with an Associated Press report saying three of the six were missing.

FIFA confirmed in an email to the Canadian Press that the players defected.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Tom Rusert would not confirm reports that the players tried to cross into the United States at the Niagara Falls border point on Thursday. He cited privacy concerns as a reason why he couldn't give out any information. He added that no arrests were made in relation to this case.

"As with any Cuban sport team that travels around the world, they're all chasing the American dream," Gonzalez said. "And it's difficult to try to keep the team together. ... Obviously it's a difficult situation for the team, and it's tough for me to talk about it."

Canadian national team coach Stephen Hart knew the Cubans were down players but opted not to tell his team about it before kickoff. Canada won the match 3-0.

The names of the defectors are not known, but their move is far from unprecedented.

Two of the three Cubans playing in MLS — Osvaldo Alonso of the Seattle Sounders and Real Salt Lake's Yordany Álvarez — defected while with the national team before a game on foreign land. Alonso is now a U.S. citizen. The third Cuban, Montreal's Eduardo Sebrango, is now a naturalized Canadian citizen.

Last January, two players with the Cuba women's team fled to the U.S. following a match against Canada in Vancouver.